NexusBA is a method concept created to elaborate the organisation's tacit knowledge, which is developed by principal Vesa Raasumaa on the basis of, among others, Takeuchi Nonaka's ideas. It is suitable as a basis of the development and strategy work of organisations. Www-designer Piia Ahonen has made the technical realization, www-concept maker Jari Lankinen being her coach.
NexusBA works in the Nexus program development environment, which makes it possible to combine other methods to one database-based knowledge system. It is possible to create a development community for further development of the method.
The Japanese organization researcher Ikujiro Nonaka observes the tacit knowledge in community's point of view. How to bring forth the tacit knowledge to develop the organization's actions? Nonaka's process model reminds the hermeneutic circle, and it is based on the created interaction between the tacit and the explicit knowledge. The explicit knowledge is objective and it can be trensferred to formal language. It can also be saved in databases and libraries, unlike tacit knowledge that has no languge, no outlet as such.
Nonaka has created the concept "hyper text-organization" to describe the combination of hierarchical and horizontal work community, in which the middle management has a key position as the producer of new knowledge. He criticizes Western organisational ideas for their static mental model of the communities. The accentuation of quantitative knowledge over qualitative shows that. Indicators of actions ( like ROI, expenses, efficiency) are only producing follow-up information. They are not clearing the way for different futures. In Nonaka's (1991) own model, the dynamic innovation and renewal are essential. There is a cycle from individual knowledge to social experience and back.
The change from tacit knowledge to explicit is similar to analog-to-digital conversion. Information in a continuos analog form is a practice, and information in phased digital form represents a theory. Production of analog information is continuos in that way that no single change in information flow is noticed. In human consciousness it means the "softness" of experiences. When analogic information is converted to digital form, it happens always by "scanning", or changing stepless to steps.
The tacit knowledge means reflecting things and relations present right here and right now, not analyzed or classified "aloud" or consciously. Social, reflective knowledge is created by transforming this tacit understanding to explicit. There are four modification stages in Nonaka's process. First, the tacit knowledge is modified to shared tacit knowledge (socialization), in which intuitive experiences (among others knowledge of the body, zen-learning) are shared with other participants. Secondly, the shared tacit knowledge is modified to explicit knowledge (externalization). Its methods are dialogue, concept creation, metaphors, analogical comparisons, and changing private beliefs into collective. In the third stage, the explicit knowledge is turned into wide explicit knowledge (combining), in which the important media are techniques and technologies for mediation and sharing (data networks, information technology). Fourth, the explicit knowledge is brought back to tacit knowledge (internalization). New, comprehended theory and practice become routine and are automated as improved practices and functions.
The dialogue in the externalization stage refers to a kind of face-to-face communication between individuals, where people share beliefs and motivations for their thinking. The dialogue spreads the tacit knowledge and encourages a two-way interaction between the tacit and explicit knowledge. The main characteristics of nonakan way of dialogue are (1) mediating bodily or physical information, (2) immediate feedback, (3) synchronous exchange of ideas and (4) continuum of checks and additions.
Interactions in the organization will increase, when participating expands. the intensifying development history can be described as being a spiral, which starts from an individual who is in possess of the tacit knowledge. From there, the cycle proceeds to the team level and little by little continues its course trough the whole organization, and even to its external operational environment.
In the socialization stage, tacit knowledge is collected from everywhere inside the community, and sometimes outside it, too. The crucial thing for obtaining the latest tacit information is a direct interaction with people. The capital of tacit knowledge is increased and systematized little by little. In the last socialization phase the provisionally systematized tacit knowledge spread and communicated directly to collegues and co-actors. Products of this phase are memic ideas, pictures and images, different functional practices and metaphors.
Externalization means articulating the tacit knowledge, expressing ideas and images by words, concepts, analysis, metaphors, and analogues. The main means is a dialogue, which can take place both between personnel, and through customers and experts. The aim is to transform the tacit knowledge to a commonly and collectively understandable form.
The combination means not only integrating the newborn explicit knowledge to old knowledge, but also the collecting of knowledge and the networking that precedes it. In the combination phase, the explicit knowledge is spread and presented to the whole work community. For that, the explicit knowledge is edited to documents and media (plans, reports, letters, publications, course materials, etc.).
Internalization means making the explicit knowledge "bodily" through action and practice, and at the same time, testing new concepts, methods, strategies, and innovations. The explicit knowledge is internalized little by little through simulations, exercises and experimentations. Finally, the new concepts and practices are merged into action and they are changed back to tacit knowledge.
According to Nonaka, success in the transforming process of the tacit knowledge requires a real development effort, adequate autonomy of actors, organizational and functional variety, and chaos of contingency and complexity. (Nonaka 1997) In practice, a team organization of certain level is required from a work community, or otherwise Nonaka's requirements will hardly come true. An autonomous enough team is needed, so that the private and personal tacit knowledge can be spread and confirmed. The knowledge achieved with the help of socialization can thus be externalized to become public. The public knowledge can then be internalized to a product or a system. The legitimation and integration of new concepts to a new capital of the organization also starts from the team.
In creating the collective knowledge, creative chaos can mean an unique chance, from which organizational learning can begin. An organization usually drifts to a chaos through unfunctional practices, which form into crisis because of technological or other external upheavals. Casting out the crisis-awareness is an important part of the chaos experience, and also a requirement for the start of the problem solving process.
In the early stage, too much information is usually produced and this without the fear of repetition. This phase corresponds to the composing phase of ideas in a small-group work. Information can freely be of different levels and dissimilar in order to fasten the process of creating knowledge. All collected information about the community, functions, and responsibilities are combined together. Materials are spread to collective use. It is important to tone down the effect of the hierarchy, so that the knowledge can move around freely.
According to Nonaka, the critical versatility of ideas can best be developed by making different development groups compete with each other. The groups' viewpoints nsights are varied until the best one is found. Another way tested in Japan, is recycling individuals in different fields and functions of technology. Promoting the mobility deducts the pledging of information, which maybe more than any other single factor prevents the tacit knowledge to procede in the organization.
In Nonaka's model, the top management answers for visions and timetables, and lower officers answer for the production. The middle management links and hubs both levels. The middle management includes, among others, team leaders, who are real supporters and carriers of information in the organization. Crucial for Nonakan process is how managers of the middle management are able to build a favorable environment for forming the tacit knowledge (field building), which supports the dialogue and experience exchange.
In Nonaka's ideal organization - in hypertext environment - the efficiency of the traditional hierarchical and bureaucratic organization (Charles Handy's Apollon -role society) is combined with the commitment of the flat functional organization (Pallas Athene -duty society). This kind of organization can be described as three-floored. The first floor is the knowledge base, which merges the tacit knowledge (organization's culture and working methods) into the explicit knowledge in different documents. The second floor forms a business floor (productive action), of which a hierarchical and section-divided organization is responsible. The topmost floor consists of many, loosely together-joined project teams, which are formed in order to create new information.
Project teams dig into the knowledge base to produce and document renewable knowledge for everyone's use. When the task is completed, project members go back to "business floor" to their normal work, until they are called for again, or until they find their way to a new project by themselves. The success of working community depends on management's ability to create relevant collective knowledge and fast movement between different floors. (Nonaka 1994)
Nonaka names many dangerous points, where the process may get stucked. What they all have in common, is that the creation of knowledge is not based on adequate theory formation. In that case the idea of what knowledge is and whereto it is based on might be undeveloped and immature. In the same way there may excist some misunderstanding about how the knowledge is collected, created and spread. Some unbalance may also come from a tendency to concentrate too much on tools and methods of internalization, or on individuals and groups, but not on relations and dependencies. Furthermore, it is dangerous to conceive learning only as adaptation and processes as stimulus-reaction -models. In all phases of the cycle, what is learned should be evaluated and more than one future path kept open.
Nexus BA is in a pilot phase, and available to public use in the first quarter of 2005. You can inquire more about the method from Internetix' producer Jere Lauha or Metodix announcer Maija Linturi (040 7214779).
c) Internetix: tiedot päivitetty 03.10.2004
